Part 16 (2/2)

Poetry not beloved by any one Class

Mr Gissing, be it observed, speaks only of the class which he has studied: but in talking of ”demos,” or, more loosely, of ”democracy,”

we must be careful not to limit these terms to the ”lower” and ”lower-middle” classes For Poetry, who draws her priests and warders froenerally beloved of none The average country e professional e commercial traveller--to all these she is alike unknown: at least, the insensibility of each is differentiated by shades so fine that we need not trouble ourselves to make distinctions A public school and university education does as little for the Squire Westerns one uinea subscription to a circulating library for the kind of matron one co the news of Browning's death I stopped an acquaintance in the street, a professionalmanner, and repeated it to him He stared for a moment, and then murmured that he was sorry to hear it

Clearly he did not wish to hurt uest idea who Browning ht be And if anybody think this an extreme case, let him turn to the daily papers and read the names of those ere at Newreat poet was laid in the Abbey with every pretence of national grief The pursuit of one horse by another is doubtless aspectacle than ”the pursuit of a flea by a 'lady,'” but on that afternoon even a tepid lover of letters ruity in both entertainments

I do not say that the General Public hates Poetry But I say that those who care about it are few, and those who know about it are fewer Nor do these assert their right of interference as often as they ht Just once or twice in the last ten or fifteen years they have pulled up some exceptionally coarse weed on which the General Public had every disposition to graze, and have pitched it over the hedge to Lethe wharf, to root itself and fatten there; and terrible as those of Polydorus have been the shrieks of the avulsed root But as a rule they have sat and piped upon the stile and considered the good cow grazing, confident that in the end she must ”bite off more than she can chew”

The ”Outsiders”

Still, the aristocracy of letters exists: and in it, if nowhere else, titles, social advantages, and co; while Royalty itself sits in the Court of the Gentiles And I am afraid we must include in the crowd not only those affable politicians who froe us with their views upon literature, little realizing what Hecuba is to them, and still less what they are to Hecuba, but also those affable teachers of religion, philosophy, and science, who condescend occasionally to ae its labels for us while drawing our attention to the rapid deterioration of the flowerbeds The author of _The Citizen of the World_ once coland to a Persian army, ”where there are many pioneers, several suttlers, numberless servants, women and children in abundance, and but few soldiers” Were he alive to-day he would be forced to include the Volunteers

FOOTNOTES:

[A] In a private letter, from which I am allowed to quote, Mr Hall Caine (October 2nd, 1894) explains and (as I think) amends his position:--”If I had said _time_ instead of _the public_, I should have expressed myself exactly It is impossible for me to work up any enthusiasm for the service done to literature by criticise over you of having wasted threeall the literary criticism extant of the first quarter of this century It would be difficult to express , and its bad passions But the good books it assailed are not lost, and the bad ones it glorified do not survive It is not that the public has been the better judge, but that good work has the seeds of life, while bad work carries with it the seeds of dissolution This is the key to the story of Wordsworth on the one hand, and to the story of Tupper on the other Tupper did not topple down because James Hannay smote him Fifty James Hannays had shouted hi sense that the big mountain was a ht it down The truth is that it is not the 'critic who knows' or the public which does not know that determines the ultimate fate of a book--the immediate fate they may both influence The book ht, it lives; if it is wrong, it dies And the critic who re-establishes a neglected poet issense There have always been a few good critics, thank Godbut the finest critic is the untutored sentiment of the public, not of to-day or to-ether--a senti on to it or letting it drop”

Of course, I agree that a book must ultimately depend for its fate upon its own qualities But when Mr Hall Caine talks of ”a growing sense,” I ask, In whorow? And I answer, In the cultured feho enforce it upon the many--as in this very case of Wordsworth And I hold the credit of the result (apart fros rather to those few persistent advocates than to those judges who are only ”ultimate” in the sense that they are the last to be convinced

[B] If the reader object that I a the Great Heart and Great Brain of the Public as interchangeable terms, I would refer him to Mr

Du Maurier's famous Comic Alphabet, letter Z:--

”Z is a Zoophyte, whose heart's in his head, And whose head's in his turn--rudimentary Z!”

[C] _Questions at Issue_; by Edmund Gosse London: William Heinemann

A CASE OF BOOKSTALL CENSORshi+P

March 16, 1895 The ”Woman Who Did,” and Mr Eason ouldn't

”In the ro Libary”

--and, I regret to say, gave hith of it

The persons in my instructive little story are--

HH Prince Francis of Teck

Mr Grant Allen, author of _The Woman Who Did_